RFK Jr. Mentions new slate or vaccine advisers after purifying CDC panel

Health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has unveiled eight people he chose to serve in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Vaccine Advisory Panel – only two days after taking the unprecedented step of Remove all 17 sitting members.

On Wednesday, Kennedy mentioned the names and short bios of the new advisers who will become a member of the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices or ACIP Upcoming meeting at the end of June.

“All these people are dedicated to evidence-based medicine, gold standard science and common sense,” Kennedy said in a message on x“They are committed to requiring data from final safety and efficacy before they make new vaccine recommendations.”

The new members are Dr. Joseph R. Hibbeln, Martin Kulldorff, Retsef Levi, Dr. Robert Malone, Dr. Cody Meissner, Dr. Michael A. Ross, Dr. James Pagano and Vicky Pebsworth.

“This is a huge victory for medical freedom [m]Ovement, “David Mansdoerfer, former deputy assistant secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services in the first Trump administration, wrote In a message on x“They did everything in the book to put together this excellent slate of arranged.”

Proponents of public health are wary.

“Kennedy did not choose people with strong, current expertise in vaccines,” says Dorit Reiss, professor at UC Law, San Francisco, who studies vaccine policy. “It tells me that Kennedy sets up a committee that would be skeptical about vaccines and may be willing to implement an anti-vaccine agenda.”

The panel of external experts helps to set vaccine policy and traditional recommendations for the immunization schedule, which guides care providers and influences that are covered by insurers.

The new selections of Kennedy have varied backgrounds, although many became known during the COVID-19 Pandemie, when they criticized government policy at school closures and lockdowns, and the MRNA vaccines.

Kulldorff, an epidemiologist and biostatistician, helped for example writing the Great Barrington statement With Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, then a professor at Stanford University who is now director of the National Institutes of Health. That open letter doubted Lockdowns and other public health measures at the start of the COVID-19 Pandemie. Kulldorff refused to comment when he was reached by NPR.

Malone has received a large following for undermining the COVID-19 vaccine. A scientist who worked on early research into MRNA technology became critical of the shot and unfounded and refuted claims made, Including falsely mention that vaccination people who have already had COVID-19 with a higher risk.

Some of those selected by Kennedy hold academic agreements at well -known universities.

In fact, Meissner, a professor of pediatrics and medicine at Dartmouth College‘S Geisel School of Medicine was previously a member of ACIP. A CDC database Posted in March Show that Meissner made 12 conflicts of interest during his time in the committee from 2008 to 2012. Kennedy has cited conflicts of interest as a reason to dismiss the previous committee members. Meissner did not immediately have a request for comment returned on his voicemail and per text.

Meissner was a member of the Panel of Vaccin Advisors of Food and Drug Administration who made recommendations to allow the use of Covid vaccines. He has criticized recommendations to mask children, also in an OP-ED that he wrote together with the current FDA commissioner Marty Makary, and has indicated support For Kennedy’s recent decision to remove healthy children and pregnant women from the COVID-19 vaccine schedule.

Another member, Vicky Pesworthhas served on the administration of the National Vaccine Information Center – a prominent advocacy that warns against vaccine risks.

Dr. RETSEF LEVI, who is at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has been worried about the shots. In a social media post in Early 2023Levi said all “Covid mrna vaccination program[s] Should stop immediately … because they do not completely fail to fulfill their advertised promises with regard to effectiveness “and there was” increasing and indisputable evidence that they cause unprecedented levels of damage, including the death of young people and children. “

Kennedy’s decision to replace the entire schedule of the ACIP shocked public health and medical institution, which feared that the move cleared the way for a committee that will take steps to undermine the vaccine policy.

The next ACIP meeting is planned for 25-27 June. The committee can only vote if a quorum is present, which is defined in its most recent Policy and procedures Such as when “more than half of the members entitled to vote is present.”

Kennedy has appointed eight members as the committee, which is short at Quorum for the Commission, which is currently being chartered for nineteen members, says Reiss, with UC Law, San Francisco. That is why at least two ex-Officio members of other HHS agencies must be temporarily authorized to vote for the committee to continue, she says.